


Bitter water

by zmeischa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Fandom Kombat 2012, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zmeischa/pseuds/zmeischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Sandor takes small Joffrey swimming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter water

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to darkling for beta-reading

“Tastes like piss,” said the Hound and spat.

Joffrey giggled.

“How do you know what piss tastes like? Did you drink it?”

“You live to my age, you’ll know,” promised the Hound. He stretched and sat on the silken sand. The sea was sparkling so much it hurt his eyes, the Queen’s white bathing hut was surrounded by guards in painfully shining armour.

Joffrey pouted.

“Why are you sitting? Undress, let’s go swimming!”

The Hound scratched behind his ear. He didn’t want to swim – or to undress. When the Queen had announced today’s bathing, he decided that she meant some gentlefolk’s silliness on the shore: they’d sing some ballads or throw stones in the sea. He couldn’t imagine anyone daft enough to swim in the sea of their own will. And yet now it appeared that the daftest person was the Hound himself for he was wearing his torn smallclothes. 

“Why don’t we just sit on the sand?” he suggested. “Or you could go to your mother if you want”.

Joffrey stamped his foot.

“No! I want to swim! Mother said that you must do as I bid! I’m... bidding you!”

The Hound muttered something that sounded like “whip you bloody” and began unlacing his jacket. Joffrey gave him an admiring look.

“Your muscles are so big – just like my father’s! And you’re even taller! But he is wider in shoulders”.

“If your father keeps stuffing his face, he’ll be as wide as I’m tall,” grunted the Hound.

Joffrey laughed again.

“Let’s go, let’s go swimming, what are you waiting for? Do you even know how to swim?”

 

“Did you ever see a dog that couldn’t?” snapped the Hound.

“All right, then you must carry me to the sea,” commanded Joffrey. “I don’t like walking on the sand on my bare feet”.

The Hound shrugged but obeyed.

“My mother is the best swimmer ever! She swims like a fish!”

“Aye, and daft as a fish as well,” thought the Hound. In Westerlands a woman who could swim was considered a witch. When little, his father once witnessed a village trial of a witch: she was tied up and thrown into a pond. “Did she drown, poor soul, – his father used to sigh. – Ain’t a witch can drown thataway”. The Hound doubted that Jamie Lannister would let anyone throw his sister into a pond, but the queen was still too much of a talker. 

He stopped when the water reached his chest.

“Now you swim by yourself”.

Joffrey pouted.

“No, I’ve changed my mind. I will sit on you back, and you will carry me”.

The Hound wanted to say what he thought about this, but only spat.

“All right,” he grunted. “Climb on me. If I start drowning, you pull my hair. I said ‘if”, not now”.

Joffrey gave him an enthusiastic kick with both heels.

“Did you ever drown?”

“Aye,” the Hound said reluctantly.

“Tell me!”

“There’s nothing to tell… The boat overturned, and I was wearing armor, end of story.”

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing. Reached the bottom and stood up”.

“And that’s all?” Joffrey was disappointed.

“That’s all. The sea was shallow, up to my neck.” The Hound went silent for a second. “And for the other two it was over their heads. So”.

Joffrey spurred him again.  

“Tell me how you fought the Iron men!” he demanded.

“Just did”, the Hound answered glumly. “Fighting is fighting”.

“No, tell me! From the very beginning!”

“At the very beginning they came to Lannisport, robbed us and burned our ships. And then we came to their islands, burned their town, killed their men, raped their women and took their children hostages. And took back what they stole. Like it, don’t you?”

“I do! Did you see Lord Stark?”

The Hound laughed suddenly.

“Sure thing. You know, Iron men are daft, they wear everything they steal, women’ jewels and all. Go to war like whores to a fair. So, Stark and your uncle Stannis, they told their men that anyone who robs corpses will hang. And your uncle Jaime, he said that the gold on the dead men was ours by right, as they stole it from Lannisport, so he allows his men to think for themselves. So, one evening after the battle me and some other men are thinking for ourselves, and here rides Lord Stark. He gave us one look, pulled a face and said: were you my men, I’d take my ancestral sword and cut off your heads with it”.

“With his own hands?!” Joffrey was thrilled.

“Aye. In his castle, he’s the one who chops the heads of all the criminals, he likes that”.

“That’s great! And what did you do?”

“I told him he’d have to take his ancestral sword out of his ass first”.

Joffrey roared with laughter.

“What a cheek!.. I would execute you for it!” he said, gasping from laughter.

“That’s right, _you_ would execute me. And your mother would. Your father – he’d punch me or he’d laugh with me, depends on how much he drank that day. And Ned Stark, he looked at me like I was a piece of shit, and rode on”.

“And that’s all?”

“And that’s all. He is the Lord of the North, ‘tis not right for him to wrangle with some soldier”.

Joffrey became thoughtful.

“Is it true that Northern lords flay their enemies and wear their skins?”

“They say Boltons used to, their arms say so. Who knows… I never saw it, but you take one look at Lord Bolton and you know he’s just the man who would”.

“Could you… could you flay a living man?” gasped Joffrey.

The Hound gulped the sea water.

“Do I look like a furrier to you, or what?” he said after his fit of coughing passed. “I don’t know, I’ve never tried. Guess not. We’re not talking marmots, after all”.

“What is a marmot?”

“’Tis…” The Hound tried to remember a house which had a marmot on their arms, but decided that it was unlikely. “’Tis an animal which lives in the mountains. Fat, the size of two cats.”

“And you flayed them? Alive?”

“You just can’t let go, right? Dead, of course. Their fur is warm, almost a cubit thick”.

He continued swimming in silence.

“I want to swim by myself!” Joffrey demanded.

The Hound eased him into the water, stretched his numb shoulders, turned to the shore and whistled. The beach and the bathing hut were gone from sight, only the walls of King’s Langing were soaring high over the sea.

“Let’s go back”, he suggested. “Look how far we are”.

“I don’t want to!” said Joffrey in a nasty voice. “Let’s swim farther!”

The Hound thought about drowning him a bit.

“You mother will flay _me_ alive and put my skin in front on her bed”.

Joffrey found the idea exhilarating, but obediently turned to the shore.

“Look how I swim! When you were my age, could you swim like that? I bet you couldn’t! Can you see that white thing? What is it? A seagull? No, wait, it’s… a sea-monster! With a tail! From the Manderlys’ arms!”

“That would be Ser Barristan,” said the Hound. “Wearing his famous white cloak. Oh, wait, ‘tis his white smallclothes”.

Joffrey found it so hilarious that he nearly plunged.

“Smallclothes!” he repeated, guffawing.

“Enough to make a cat laugh”, said the Hound and provoked a new burst of laughter.

“And why is Ser Barristan swimming towards us?” Joffrey asked after regaining his breath. “To protect me? And from what? Oh, I know! From the sea-monster! And what will you do if we are attacked by a… big fish? You’ll smack it hard, won’t you? You’ll break its teeth! You… you’ll gut it with your bare hands! Right?”

The Hound didn’t reply. He knew why Ser Barristan was swimming towards them, and what he’d say once he reached them.

“You dog,” said Ser Barristan. “Are you out of your mind? Who let you? How dare you take the prince with you? Go back that instant!”

The Hound squinted.

“And here I was hoping to swim to Volantis and sell him at the slave-market. They say pretty boys fetch big money there. You wanna go halves?”

Ser Barristan gasped.

“In front of the child… your filthy mouth… I don’t know why the Queen…”

“I want to wee!” Joffrey announced loudly.

“Ain’t I glad to hear it!” the Hound replied in a harsh voice. “Well, go on, add some water to the sea”.

“I don’t want to do it in the sea! I want to do it on the shore!”

“Oh bugger it all… climb on my back, or you’ll wallow till the evening”.

Ser Barristan wanted to say something but changed his mind and plunged.

The Hound kept swimming silently till a hot stream tickled across his back.

“I thought you didn’t want to do it in the sea”, he said without turning his head.

“I was holding it,” Joffrey was embarrassed. “I _was_ holding it… and then I wasn’t”.

“Good for you. They say you get stones if you hold it too long”.

Joffrey leaned to his healthy ear and whispered in a conspiratorial tone:

“Could you kill him?”

The Hound looked back. Ser Barristan was following them, his white beard cleaving the water.

“Sure. He must sleep some time, right?”

“In his sleep?” Joffrey was dumbfounded.

“Well, how would you have me kill him? On the tourney, with a blunt sword, according to rules? I don’t think so.”

Joffrey pondered.

“You will kill anyone if I tell you so, right?”

“If the King tells me so.”

“I wish I was the King already!”

“Can’t wait.”

“I could order to execute anyone then, right?”

“You would”.

“And I’ll decree… no, guess”.

“You’ll forbid soup for dinner,” the Hound supposed idly.

“No, you guessed wrong! I would…” Joffrey whispered in his ear. The Hound roared with laughter and looked over his shoulder to see Ser Barristan.

“Aye, you do that. Ser White Smallclothes will burst from spite”.

“You will be like Ser Duncan the Tall, and I’ll be like King Aegon”.

“Alike as twins,” the Hound agreed. “Here we are, now get off my back”.

 

 


End file.
